With the Term 1 school holidays upon us, I take this opportunity to wish you all a safe, happy, and healthy term break.
I would like to remind our students and in particular our VCE students to spend some time each day during the next few weeks, reviewing and revising the work undertaken so far this year. Year 12 is a marathon, not a sprint, so it’s important that students work consistently throughout the year and chip away at the work bit by bit.
Parent Teacher Interviews
It has been a tremendously busy nine weeks with a great number of wonderful activities and events throughout the term. Parent/Teacher Interviews provided an opportunity to see, meet and chat with your child’s teacher and to take a moment to reflect on what has worked well and to perhaps, put some strategies or structures in place to ensure continued improvement. Many of my conversations with parents were overwhelmingly positive, in particular dialogue concerning our college, improving facilities and the work of our staff in providing a supportive, engaging and challenging learning environment.
I also take this opportunity to remind parents that the teaching industry is currently under enormous pressure with many quality teaching and support staff leaving, retiring, or pursuing less stressful work. Many of my secondary school colleagues, some just a few kilometres further out from us are still significantly short staffed. Children are attending school each day without a permanent teacher for multiple classes.
There are many factors that are contributing to this, but the recently released productivity report highlights that in a few years’ time there will be a teacher shortage of over 5,000 - the majority in the secondary sector. We too found it extremely challenging to replace staff at the end of last year, with suitably qualified and capable teachers.
It is vitally important that we retain good staff and ensure longevity in the profession. Our future depends on it! The main reason staff give for leaving the profession is workload such as having to do lots of administration and individualisation of teaching. No doubt poor student behaviour also contributes but support from parents in such situations really helps whereas poor parent behaviour can have a significant impact on staff mental health and wellbeing. As an industry the last one is of significant concern and has received lots of air-time recently. Whilst we encourage parents to communicate concerns with us it is also imperative that these conversations are respectful and considered. I wish to thank our parent/carer community for working with us and acknowledging our school values when communicating with our staff.
Our school values of Respect, Initiative and Learning (RIL) and the type of behaviours we like to see, form our RIL matrix below.
If you can, please take a moment to thank a teacher, it really does make a big difference to feel valued and appreciated.
JLTAV Award
Whilst I am talking about terrific teachers, I would like to acknowledge our Japanese teacher and Languages Leader, Takanori Hayakawa, for his life membership to the Japanese Language Teachers’ Association of Victoria.
Sensei was awarded life membership a few weeks ago and is highly respected and valued for his work over several decades. He was also acknowledged for his outstanding work with Haiku and his contribution to providing high quality professional development for many Japanese language teachers across Victoria. Well done Mr Hayakawa!
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Top Arts
In further good news I would like to acknowledge Hadi Ahmad who completed Year 12 last year and is one of only 50 students in the state to have his work on display in Top Arts at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).
Hadi has a unique story, and his success is testament to his hard work, resilience, terrific values and the support and guidance provided from our wonderful Visual Arts Faculty and his family. Ms Davies attended the presentation a few weeks ago and was so thrilled to see Hadi achieve such exceptional accolades.
School Council Elections
I would like to congratulate our elected school council representatives, John Spasevski, Natalia Homatopoulos, Andrew Barker, Mark Heintz, Michelle Prosenica, Larry De Cata, Daria Villani, Annette Therik, Natalie Fitzgerald, Claudia Bradilovich and Evan McKenna Burke. I look forward to your contribution in ensuring Rosehill continues to be an excellent educational college for our community.
During the School Council meeting held in March, the following parents were elected to the positions below.
- President: John Spasevski
- Vice President: Andrew Barker
- Treasurer: Mark Heintz
Acknowledgement
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the terrific work of all the staff at Rosehill Secondary College throughout this term. Our teachers, our support staff (Administration, Library, Wellbeing, Careers, ICT, Learning Support, Technology, Science, and Maintenance) and the principal class team, have worked tirelessly to ensure a very smooth, calm, and successful Term 1.
Our moral purpose as educators is to provide the best learning opportunities for all the students at our college but to also improve our society by raising well-rounded individuals. Our values of Respect, Initiative and Learning (RIL) are central to this belief and are referred to daily by our staff when interacting with students and one another. I trust that these values will hold your child in good stead throughout life.
I look forward to continuing our positive learning journey next term.
Arthur Soumalias
PRINCIPAL
